Francine Kay Affourtit (1975) is a Philadelphia based artist, educator and arts organizer. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from Tyler School of Art as a Temple University Fellow.

Francine's studio work concentrates on re-thinking the applications of printmaking to create sculptural installations and unique constructions from woodcuts. Francine’s activities outside the studio are fueled by a desire to build relationships with artists, communities and the public as a means of collaborative creation and transformative discourse.

Recent projects include Eye of the Beholder in collaboration with Biennale Urbana in Venice, Italy and Traveling Suitcase Installation Project that embarked on a six-city exhibition tour, including exhibitions at GENERATORprojects in Dundee, Werkstadt in Berlin, and Corridor Gallery in Brooklyn. Francine's work has also been exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the International Print Center of New York, Castello 925 in Venice, Flatbed Press in Austin, and Temple Gallery in Rome. Francine is a 2017 recipient of the Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts. She currently teaches at Tyler School of Art.

Artist Statement

“I am the fragment sounding the dawnYou are the walls of my every echo.” Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib

My artistic practice converges at the intersection of language, systems, and the methodology of printmaking as a means for developing structures where chance and control can dance in a rhythmic duet. I engage with Print as a conceptual framework – one that utilizes iteration and repetition to mimic the ontological mappings of memory and the complexity of perception. The matrix translates as a system – allowing for the recontexualization of imagery and pattern through the conceptual pairing of method and form. Harnessing the serendipity inherent in the printmaking process and the unique mark-making of wood, I seek to investigate the intricacy of visual comprehension by giving form to ideas waiting for their language.